Garcia v. Friesecke

• Decision Date: 18 April 1979
• Docket Number: Nos. 78-1281,s. 78-1281
• Citation: 597 F.2d 284
• Parties: Jose M. Alonso GARCIA et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Adalbert FRIESECKE and British Marine Mutual Insurance Association, Defendants and Third-Party Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. SEA LAND SERVICE, INC., Third-Party Defendant, Appellee. Francisco Garcia SERRANO and Jose M. Alonso Garcia, etc., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. GULF ATLANTIC TRANSPORT CORP., and Continental Insurance Co., Defendants and Third-Party Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. ENTERPRISES SHIPPING CO., INC., Third-Party Defendant, Appellee. Gregario Torres MATOS, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. COMPAGNIE GENERALE TRANSATLANTIQUE, Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff, Appellee, v. FRED IMBERT, INC. and Glenn Falls Insurance Company, Third-Party Defendants, Appellees. Virginia MAYSONET, etc., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. AMERICAN EXPORT ISBRANDSTEN LINES, Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff, Appellee, v. SAN JUAN MERCANTILE CORP. et al., Third-Party Defendants, Appellees. Rafael E. Claudio TORRES, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. SEA LAND SERVICE, INC., Defendant, Appellee. Jose A. Melendez FLORES, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. COPORACION RAYMOND, S. A., et al., Defendants, Appellees. to 78-1284, 78-1292 and 78-1297.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 284

597 F.2d 284

Jose M. Alonso GARCIA et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Adalbert FRIESECKE and British Marine Mutual Insurance

Association, Defendants and Third-Party Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. SEA LAND SERVICE, INC., Third-Party Defendant, Appellee.

Francisco Garcia SERRANO and Jose M. Alonso Garcia, etc., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. GULF ATLANTIC TRANSPORT CORP., and Continental Insurance

Co., Defendants and Third-Party Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. ENTERPRISES SHIPPING CO., INC., Third-Party Defendant, Appellee.

Gregario Torres MATOS, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. COMPAGNIE GENERALE TRANSATLANTIQUE, Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff, Appellee, v. FRED IMBERT, INC. and Glenn Falls Insurance Company,

Third-Party Defendants, Appellees.

Virginia MAYSONET, etc., et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. AMERICAN EXPORT ISBRANDSTEN LINES, Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff, Appellee, v. SAN JUAN MERCANTILE CORP. et al., Third-Party Defendants, Appellees.

Rafael E. Claudio TORRES, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. SEA LAND SERVICE, INC., Defendant, Appellee.

Jose A. Melendez FLORES, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. COPORACION RAYMOND, S. A., et al., Defendants, Appellees.

Nos. 78-1281 to 78-1284, 78-1292 and 78-1297.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Argued Feb. 6, 1979.

Decided April 18, 1979.

Stanley L. Feldstein, Old San Juan, P. R., with whom Feldstein, Gelpi, Hernandez & Castillo, Old San Juan, P. R., was on briefs, for plaintiffs, appellants.

Antonio M. Bird, Jr., San Juan, P. R., and Daniel J. Dougherty, New York City, with whom Bird & Bird, San Juan, P. R., Alberto Santiago Villalonga, Hartzell, Ydrach, Mellado, Santiago & Perez, Hato Rey, P. R., Jose Antonio Fuste, Jimenez & Fuste, San Juan, P. R., and Kirlin, Campbell & Keating, Washington, D. C., were on brief, for defendants and third-party plaintiff, appellees.

Harry Anduze Montano, Hato Rey, P. R., for third-party defendants, appellees.

Carin Ann Clauss, Sol. of Labor, Laurie M. Streeter, Associate Sol., Joshua T. Gillelan, II, and Gilbert T. Renaut, Attys., U. S. Dept. of Labor, Washington, D. C., on brief, for amicus curiae, Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs.

Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, CAMPBELL and BOWNES, Circuit Judges.

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Circuit Judge.

These appeals present the questions whether the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. §§ 901-950, applies to Puerto Rico and, if not, whether the Puerto Rico Workmen's Accident Compensation Act, 11 L.P.R.A. § 1 Et seq., (hereinafter PRWACA) supersedes plaintiffs' remedies under the general federal maritime law for negligence and unseaworthiness.

Four of the plaintiffs, ¹ employees of independent stevedoring contractors retained by defendant shipowners, were injured while performing longshoring work on defendants' vessels which were located upon Puerto Rican navigable waters. Plaintiffs' employers, the independent contractors, were insured in accordance with PRWACA and plaintiffs received benefits thereunder. Plaintiffs then brought suit against defendant shipowners alleging that the negligence of defendants and the unseaworthiness of their vessels were responsible for plaintiffs' injuries. Defendants moved for summary judgment on the ground they were the plaintiffs' statutory employers and immune from suit under § 20 of PRWACA, 11 L.P.R.A. § 21. ² The district court granted defendants' motions.

We have previously decided that the Longshoremen's Act does not apply to Puerto Rico and that the Puerto Rican legislature may validly enact legislation inconsistent with the general maritime law. Guerrido v. Alcoa Steamship Company, 234 F.2d 349 (1st Cir. 1956); Fonseca v. Prann, 282 F.2d 153 (1st Cir. 1960), Cert. denied, 365 U.S. 860, 81 S.Ct. 826, 5 L.Ed.2d 822 (1961) (PRWACA preempts seamen's actions, brought against their employers and based on general maritime law, for negligence and unseaworthiness); Alcoa Steamship Company v. Perez Rodriguez, 376 F.2d 35 (1st Cir.), Cert. denied, 389 U.S. 905, 88 S.Ct. 215, 19 L.Ed.2d 219 (1967) (PRWACA forecloses in rem suit based on unseaworthiness by longshoreman against his employer's vessel); Mojica v. Puerto Rico Lighterage Company, 492 F.2d 904 (1st Cir. 1974) (PRWACA provides exclusive remedy for a worker injured on a tug against his employer, the tug owner). Plaintiffs ask us to reexamine our decision.

The basic principles governing our decisions in Puerto Rican maritime matters were laid down in Guerrido v. Alcoa Steamship Company, 234 F.2d 349 (1st Cir. 1956). The fact pattern in that case was much the same as here. Plaintiff was injured while working as a longshoreman aboard a vessel discharging cargo at a port in Puerto Rico. An American citizen residing in Puerto Rico, he was an employee of a stevedoring company which had contracted with defendant shipowner to handle the cargo and which was insured under PRWACA. Plaintiff filed suit in admiralty against the vessel and its owner seeking recovery based on unseaworthiness and negligence. This court held that plaintiff had stated a cause of action under federal maritime law.

We said that "the general rules of maritime law as understood in the United States (had) followed the flag to Puerto Rican waters," Id. at 354, and were enforceable there with the following qualification: Congress, by the Organic Act of 1917, Pub.L.No.368, c. 145, 39 Stat. 951, had conferred upon the Puerto Rican legislature "general legislative power concerning Puerto Rican waters" which included "full power to provide compensation for marine workers injured in Puerto Rican waters to the exclusion of the remedies against their employers provided by the American maritime law." Id. at 354, 355. Thus, the local legislature could, within a limited sphere, ³ supplant general maritime law by the enactment of legislation inconsistent therewith, although it could not supplant a rule of maritime law which Congress had expressly made applicable to Puerto Rico. We concluded

"that the rules of the admiralty and maritime law of the United States are presently in force in the navigable waters of the United States in and around the Island of Puerto Rico to the extent that they are not locally inapplicable either because they were not designed to apply to Puerto Rican waters or because they have been rendered inapplicable to these waters by inconsistent Puerto Rican legislation."

Id. at 355.

We next inquired whether any Puerto Rican statute supplanted or modified general maritime rules providing for recovery based on unseaworthiness or negligence, and we concluded none did. Indeed, plaintiff's action against defendant shipowner was in our view within the purview of § 31 of PRWACA, 11 L.P.R.A. § 32, which permits suits by injured workmen against parties other than their employers alleged to be responsible for the workmen's injuries, and hence condoned by local law. Finally, we determined that Congress had not made the federal Longshoremen's Act applicable to Puerto Rico. Id. at 356.

Thus, longshoremen could recover against their employers under PRWACA and against third-party shipowners under negligence and unseaworthiness principles. Guerrido; Waterman Steamship Corp. v. Rodriguez, 290 F.2d 175 (1st Cir. 1961); Colon Nunez v. Horn-Linie, 423 F.2d 952 (1st Cir. 1970). This state of affairs continued until very recently. However, on March 31, 1977, the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, in Lugo Sanchez v. Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority, Nos. R-76-116, R-76-128 (Puerto Rico 1977), construed § 31 of PRWACA as precluding employee suits in analogous circumstances. If, as the district court has ruled in the instant case, Lugo Sanchez must be taken to signal that Puerto Rico's workmen's compensation law forbids negligence and unseaworthiness actions against shipowners, then such actions may no longer be pursued in the Puerto Rico District Court unless either Congress or the Puerto Rico Legislature acts, or unless this court accepts plaintiffs' present invitation to abandon the principles laid down in Guerrido regarding the relationship between Puerto Rico and general maritime law, and the non-applicability of the Longshoremen's Act.

The plaintiff in the Lugo Sanchez case was an employee of an independent contractor who had contracted with defendant Authority for the construction and maintenance of several thermoelectric plants. Because a valve in defendant's pipeline needed repair, plaintiff's employer notified defendant Authority to remove all steam from the line. When plaintiff began to disassemble the valve, he was injured by an escaping steam jet. Plaintiff's employer was insured in accordance with PRWACA and plaintiff received compensation thereunder. Plaintiff thereafter sued defendant Authority for negligence under § 31 of PRWACA, 11 L.P.R.A. § 32. ⁴ The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico held that the Authority was not a third party within the meaning of 11 L.P.R.A. § 32 but was the plaintiff's statutory employer and immune from suit under 11 L.P.R.A. §§ 20, ⁵ 21. ⁶ The court stated that the purpose of that portion of § 20 which provides " 'this provision (of including in his payrolls the wages paid to all workmen and employees) shall not be applicable to employers for whom work is done by an independent contractor who is insured as an employer under the provisions of this Chapter' " was to grant immunity to the statutory employer, the prime contractor.

In construing PRWACA to exempt a prime contractor, the statutory employer, from liability when his subcontractor has insured the injured employee, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court followed the interpretation accorded by many other, though not all, jurisdictions to workmen compensation provisions similar to § 20 of the Puerto Rican statute. The object of statutory employer, sometimes called "contractor-under," provisions is to provide the general or prime contractor an incentive to require his subcontractors or independent contractors to carry...